


illusion of understanding

by akire_yta



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiden's not stupid</p>
            </blockquote>





	illusion of understanding

**Author's Note:**

> pinch hit for the SGA back to basics ficathon

Ford isn’t stupid. He made it into the Academy, made it through the university study and the military training. He made it to Lieutenant as fast as the regs would allow, and he made it into the SGC, where despite the rep for insanity, only the smart survived.

He isn’t stupid, so he knows that he’s still coming out from his sheltered life growing up. He knows he’s naïve about some things, knows he’s inexperienced compared to the others who signed up for Atlantis. His grandfather always taught him that knowing about a weakness was the first step in making it a strength.

Aiden thought of himself as strong. But working with the Major, hanging with Teyla, even watching McKay work or Doctor Weir negotiate, showed him something. He may be strong, his choices had required him to be strong, but he had yet to develop the toughness they had. But because he was strong, and because he was smart, he recognized that their toughness was the result of time.

Aiden thought he was patient. He thought he could wait. He would watch and he would learn and he would grow to be tough and competent like they were.

Then he woke up on a gurney with a hunger that felt like it would devour him if not sated. He roared and demanded and begged and pleaded, and cursed himself for not being tough enough to resist the craving. He tried to fight but he knew he was loosing the battle.

When the nurses refused to look at him directly, but stared at him side-on, he escaped the infirmary and went to find a mirror. The bastard alien eye planted in his face didn’t change as his human eye shed tears. He curled up on the bathroom floor and hid from the mirror, hating that he wasn’t even strong enough to look himself in the eye. 

He thought he had learnt about teamwork and trust, working with Sheppard and Teyla and McKay. That illusion shattered with the glass when he saw Weir flinch away from him and then try to hide it. That they couldn’t even respect him enough to tell him the truth, that they had to coddle him and speak softly as if to a frighten child, stripped away the illusion of camaraderie he had held so dear.

Ford isn’t stupid. He knows he has to leave.


End file.
